Y Cywyddwyr Cyntaf:
Fourteenth-Century Poets and Poetry

• Ifor Williams and Thomas Roberts, Cywyddau Dafydd ap Gwilym a'i Gyfoeswyr (goln) (Poems of Dafydd ap Gwilym and his Contemporaries) (1935; a revised edn of a work originally printed by E. Thomas, Bangor, 1914). This edition of selected poems attributed to Dafydd ap Gwilym and to his four contemporaries Gruffudd Gryg, Gruffudd ab Adda, Madog Benfras and Llywelyn Goch ap Meurig Hen, is based on the collation of a number of manuscripts. It is introduced by an abbreviated form of IW's extended essay `Dafydd ap Gwilym a'r Glêr' (Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion 1913-14) - a study which strongly influenced all subsequent discussions of the European influences on Dafydd ap Gwilym's poetry. Besides poems by the poet's contemporaries, Cywyddau Dafydd ap Gwilym a'i Gyfoeswyr includes some twenty poems from the editio princeps - Barddoniaeth Dafydd ap Gwilym (eds Owen Jones and W. Owen Pughe, London, 1789), all of which were subsequently rejected by Thomas Parry, as of doubtful authenticity, from his canon of the poet's work, as established by him in Gwaith Dafydd ap Gwilym. Nevertheless, Cywyddau Dafydd ap Gwilym a'i Gyfoeswyr remains essential for study, not least for its introductory essay and notes. (T.M. Chotzen's Recherches sur la Poésie de Dafydd ap Gwilym (Amsterdam, 1927) was largely inspired by IW's essay of THSC 1914, but IW was in turn influenced in his revised introduction to the 1935 edition of Cywyddau Dafydd ap Gwilym a'i Gyfoeswyr by Chotzen's citations of further European parallels.) [For some of the work of Dafydd's contemporary poets see D. Johnston, Blodeugerdd Barddas o'r Bedwaredd Ganrif ar Ddeg (Llandybie, 1989).
• Ifor Williams, Henry Lewis and Thomas Roberts, Cywyddau Iolo Goch ac Eraill (goln) (1937, 1979). This is a revised edition of Iolo Goch ac Eraill, printed by Evan Thomas (Bangor, 1925), a collection of poems by poets c.1350-1450, with introduction, notes and glossary. This edition is now partly superseded by D. Johnston, Gwaith Iolo Goch. But Cywyddau Iolo Goch ac Eraill remains valuable as it contains the work of Iolo's contemporaries and successors - Gruffudd Llwyd, Ieuan ap Rhydderch, Siôn Cent, Rhys Goch Eryri, Llywelyn ab y Moel, Sypyn Cyfeiliog, Iorwerth ab y Cyriog and Ieuan Waed Da, few of whose poems have as yet appeared in critical editions. An introduction discusses the work of these poets. For Gruffudd Llwyd see now D. Johnston, op. cit. in previous note, and Saunders Lewis, Braslun o Hanes Llenyddiaeth Gymraeg.
• Thomas Parry (gol.), Gwaith Dafydd ap Gwilym (1952; revised edn 1963; pb. 1996). This edition seeks to establish by modern standards an authentic canon for the poetry attributed over the centuries to Dafydd ap Gwilym (c.1315- 20 to 1350-70), the foremost poet of medieval Wales, and a major European poet. There is a full critical apparatus, with introduction, notes and glossary. The book is based on some twenty years' study by the editor of the variant manuscript versions of nearly 300 poems, all of which were previously claimed to be the work of Dafydd ap Gwilym. Parry reduced to some 150 the 262 poems attributed to the poet in the editio princeps, Barddoniaeth Dafydd ap Gwilym (eds Owen Jones and William Owen Pughe, London, 1789). In his introduction Parry outlines the few details which can be deduced concerning the poet's life, with all the information which is available concerning the various men and women to whom Dafydd addressed his poems, or who are alluded to in them. Parry sets forth clearly the metrical and linguistic criteria on which he based his decisions as to authenticity, while he admits that absolute certainty on this is not possible in every single case. The text is based on a full collation of the manuscripts: variant readings are listed, but the choice between contradictory forms among these has been made by the editor. Spelling and punctuation have been modernized. The 1963 edition of Gwaith Dafydd ap Gwilym contains some brief but important additions to the notes, and some alterations to an abbreviated form of the earlier introduction. (Many readers will regret that this edition, and subsequent reprints of Gwaith Dafydd ap Gwilym, omit the valuable section on pp.clxx-cxc of the 1952 first edition, in which Parry gave brief notes on his reasons for rejecting the authenticity of each one of the 177 additional poems accepted as authentic by the editors of the 1789 Barddoniaeth Dafydd ap Gwilym.)
• R.M. Loomis, Dafydd ap Gwilym: The Poems (Binghamton, New York, 1982; distributed in Britain by the University of Wales Press). A prose translation of the complete canon of Dafydd ap Gwilym's verse, as defined and edited by Thomas Parry (see previous entry). A useful work for students, as the numbering of the poems corresponds with the numbers in Gwaith Dafydd ap Gwilym. [For selections from Gwaith Dafydd ap Gwilym, giving Parry's edited text with facing prose translations, new introduction and notes, see also R. Bromwich, Dafydd ap Gwilym: A Selection of Poems (in Gwasg Gomer's series, `The Welsh Classics', Llandysul, 1982; new edn (1987, 1993; also Harmondsworth, 1987).
• John Rowlands (gol.), Dafydd ap Gwilym a Chanu Serch yr Oesau Canol (Dafydd ap Gwilym and the Love-Poetry of the Middle Ages) (1975). Six lectures delivered at a colloquium held under this title at Gregynog in 1975: `Serch Fabliau a Serch Cwrtais' (Peter Dronke); `Serch Cwrtais mewn Llenyddiaeth Wyddeleg' (SŽan î Tuama); `Dafydd ap Gwilym: Y Traddodiad Islenyddol' (Rachel Bromwich); `Cymru yn Oes Dafydd ap Gwilym' (Rees Davies); `Dafydd ap Gwilym y Bardd' (Dafydd Elis Thomas); `Rhai Agweddau ar Gywyddau Serch y Bymthegfed Ganrif' (Gilbert Ruddock). (The first three lectures are translated from English.)
• Rachel Bromwich, Aspects of the Poetry of Dafydd ap Gwilym: Collected Papers (1986). The six essays include the writer's booklet Dafydd ap Gwilym, first published in the `Writers of Wales' series (1974); Tradition and Innovation in the Poetry of Dafydd ap Gwilym (1967, 1972); `Dafydd ap Gwilym: the Sub-literary Tradition', `Dafydd ap Gwilym and the Bardic Grammar', and an essay on the Welsh Cywyddwyr who were the poet's near contemporaries. The introduction compares Dafydd ap Gwilym's linguistic inheritance and historical circumstances with those of his contemporary Geoffrey Chaucer.
• Helen Fulton, Dafydd ap Gwilym and the European Context (1989). A study of the poet, in relation to his literary inheritance from both Wales and the European continent, and in the context of the changed sociological conditions in fourteenth-century Wales which resulted from the Edwardian Conquest of 1282.
• Dafydd Johnston (gol.), Gwaith Iolo Goch (1988). A definitive edition of thirty-nine poems accepted by the editor as the authentic work of the poet, with introduction, notes and glossary. Iolo Goch (c.1325-97?) was a junior contemporary of Dafydd ap Gwilym, whom he long outlived, and to whom he composed an elegy. Over the years, Iolo's reputation has tended to be overshadowed by that of Dafydd ap Gwilym, and this new edition goes far to adjust the balance. The text has been established from the collation of a number of manuscripts (many poems ascribed in the manuscripts to Iolo have been rejected as unauthentic). Iolo adapted the new `cywydd' metre to the older and more formal poetic tradition of `awdlau' addressed by the bards to their patrons. The patrons to whom he addressed `cywyddau' included Sir Rhys ap Gruffudd, Sir Hywel ap Gruffudd and Owain Glynd{r - men who were prominent not only in Welsh affairs, but had made their reputations also beyond the borders of Wales. Iolo evidently had some knowledge of English, and his concern with contemporary affairs is demonstrated in two adulatory poems, the one addressed to King Edward III, urging him to set forth on a crusade to the Holy Land, and the other to Sir Roger Mortimer, the heir apparent to the throne of Richard II, inciting him to savage acts of warfare in his earldom of Ulster. Iolo Goch had close relations with leading members of the Church, and a number of his poems appear to be intended primarily for an ecclesiastical audience. Among these is his famous poem to the abstract figure of the Ploughman, which echoes the intense feelings aroused among both lay and ecclesiastical landholders by the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. [Dafydd Johnston has subsequently published an extended essay on Iolo Goch for the series Llên y Llenor (Caernarfon, 1989). His English translation of Iolo's poems, with the text as in Gwaith Iolo Goch and with facing translations, is published in the `Welsh Classics' series, Iolo Goch: Poems (Llandysul, 1993).
• G.J. Williams and E.D. Jones (goln), Gramadegau'r Penceirddiaid (1934). A magistral introduction by G.J. Williams is followed by editions of three fourteenth-century texts of the Bardic Grammar (the `dwned'), which are attributed either to Einion Offeiriad or to Dafydd Ddu Athro of Hiraddug. All derive from a common original of the thirteenth century believed to have been composed by a poet who may also have been a cleric. As a preliminary, the text outlines the science of (Latin) grammar as established by Donatus and Priscian, and follows this with an extended analysis of Welsh prosody, citing examples of the different types of `awdl', `englyn' and `cywydd', and concluding with some re-adaptations of the Grammar by poets of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Gramadegau'r Penceirddiaid is an essential work for understanding the techniques of medieval Welsh poetry, as well as for the light which it sheds on some fragmentary poetic sources which may have influenced Dafydd ap Gwilym. [See T. Parry, `The Welsh Metrical Treatise attributed to Einion Offeiriad', Proceedings of the British Academy xlvii (1961), and R.G. Gruffydd, `Wales's Second Grammarian, Dafydd Ddu of Hiraethog', PBA (1995).
• Saunders Lewis, Gramadegau'r Penceirddiaid (Darlith Goffa G.J. Williams, 1967). An important, if controversial, discussion of the early texts of the Bardic Grammar. Saunders Lewis argues for the priority of the version which attributes the Grammar's composition to Dafydd Ddu of Hiraddug (Peniarth 20) over that which assigns it to Einion Offeiriad (Red Book of Hergest).
• B.F. Roberts (gol.), Gwassanaeth Meir (1961). This translation of the Officium Parvum Beatae Mariae Virginis or `Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary' is the only surviving medieval Welsh translation of a part of the pre-Reformation Church services. It was made during the second half of the fourteenth century. A point of interest is that the translation is almost entirely rendered into verse, and into a combination of `canu caeth' and `canu rhydd' (the strict and the free metres), with very little accompanying prose. The poet is named in one manuscript as Dafydd Ddu Athro o Hiraddug (with whose name compare the two entries above). This attribution appears to have been traditional: if true, it would explain the poet's evidently greater familiarity with `canu caeth' than with `canu rhydd'. Gwassanaeth Meir contains some of the earliest extant examples of `canu rhydd'.
• R.I. Daniel (gol.), Ymborth yr Enaid (Sustenance of the Soul) (1995). This text is unique in that it is an original devotional work, rather than a work translated from Latin, as were the other mystical and doctrinal treatises which accompany it in the fourteenth-century Llyfr Ancr Llanddewibrefi. Iestyn Daniel gives reasons to support his belief that the author of Ymborth yr Enaid was a thirteenth-century Dominican friar, who possessed a distinction of style and language which he had acquired from a preceding bardic training in the strict metres of Welsh poetry, as well as in the composition of prose. Particularly impressive is the friar's reported account of his vision of the child Jesus, in language which recalls the native `araith' (oration, rhetoric). The editor relates Ymborth yr Enaid to the language of the Bardic Grammar, to Gwassanaeth Meir, and to the verse of the friar Madog ap Gwallter, and he makes some interesting suggestions as to the possibilities of common authorship. The text is edited with an introduction and notes.
• J. Morris-Jones, Cerdd Dafod: sef Celfyddyd Barddoniaeth Gymraeg. Reprinted with an index by Geraint Bowen in 1980, it was first published at Oxford in 1925. JMJ's ars poetica has long been established as the definitive authority on the rules governing the different types of `cynghanedd' (harmony, alliteration) and metre as these were developed in Wales over a period of ten centuries. The writer's close familiarity with a wide range of manuscript sources enabled him to illustrate the varieties of `awdl', `cywydd' and `englyn' by quotations from the work of poets from the earliest times to the late fifteenth century. For its stylistic qualities, no less than for its content, it has been said that Cerdd Dafod `deserves to be ranked with the major [Welsh] prose-works of the [present] century'.
• Saunders Lewis, Braslun o Hanes Llenyddiaeth Gymraeg: 1. Hyd at 1535 (1932, 1986). This `Outline of the History of Welsh Literature' was planned as the first volume of a work which remained unfinished. The foundation of the tradition of Welsh praise-poetry is traced to the encomiastic verses which the sixth-century Taliesin traditionally addressed to his patron Urien Rheged. Taliesin was considered by the Gogynfeirdd to be the founder and inspiration of their poetic art, and he was recognized as such by succeeding poets. The mutual relation between praise-poet and his noble patron was confirmed and matured in the teaching of the bards, and their teaching was incorporated into Einion Offeiriad's Bardic Grammar (p.15 above). Just as poetry was nurtured in the teaching of the bards, so it is claimed that it was from the teaching afforded in the early medieval law schools that the rich tradition of medieval Welsh prose literature was evolved. Although in some respects controversial, SL's essays in this book contain much stimulating literary and philosophical comment and criticism, and remain of great interest and value, although at times they require adjustment in the light of more recent scholarship. Many of his ideas were further developed in his later essays.
• Gwyn Thomas, Y Traddodiad Barddol (The Bardic Tradition) (1976, 1993). Though published nearly fifty years subsequently to it, this survey of Welsh poetry from the earliest times to the sixteenth century covers much of the same ground as Saunders Lewis's Braslun (to which the author frequently refers), but mirrors certain major advances in scholarship which have been made during the intervening period - particularly in relation to Ifor Williams's editions and studies of the early poetry, and to Thomas Parry's edition of the poems of Dafydd ap Gwilym. Gwyn Thomas emphasizes the original oral composition and transmission of the Welsh poetic tradition, and the fact that this was already ancient when it was inherited by Taliesin and the other Cynfeirdd. Afterwards it was passed down through predominantly oral channels, in the teaching given by the bards to their pupils. The book is written in lively contemporary idiom, and though addressed primarily to students in school and college, it is probable that it will long continue to appeal to a much wider audience. Particularly welcome is the percipient discussion and commentary on the poetry of all periods, and the paraphrases given in clear modern prose to elucidate difficult passages of verse.

Poets and Poetry Cyfarwyddyd: Welsh Tales and Foreign Adaptations